


Arioso

by rukafais



Series: an endless song [9]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, insert witty tags here, this got weirdly sad in some parts and i am Not entirely sure why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 22:51:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18019973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: Meaning: Airy, or like an air (a melody);It’s a rare land that celebrates the Troupe’s arrival; rarer still that those remaining understand what it means for the Troupe to act and live as they do. Grimm seizes the opportunity and repeatedly tries to pull Brumm away from thoughts of practice and performing to have some fun for once, and finds himself meeting unexpected resistance.





	Arioso

**Author's Note:**

> Between work and Things and Everything Else Ever I haven't had quite enough time to write, so I finally made some time to do so. SORRY FOR THE DELAY, it didn't quite come together until the last couple of days or so!

“I’m not good with crowds, master,” Brumm protests. He seems oddly reluctant to go outside; while the musician is normally reclusive, he’s not usually _this_ prone to hiding himself away.

“A few groups of bugs is hardly a crowd.” Grimm sort of waves a hand, as if the idea of such a small gathering being enough to make Brumm anxious is a ridiculous idea; he’s dealt with such things before with no real issue.

“Mrmm...I’d just rather not, master.”

Grimm tilts his head, peering thoughtfully at his musician. Brumm stares right back, for once, and it’s only the flicking of his horns that gives him away as to how flustered he is to hold that gaze.

He’s gotten bolder, lately. The Troupe Master thinks it’s charming.

“Oh, very well,” he sighs, a little more dramatic than he strictly needs to be. Relenting at last, being the first to concede their little staring match. “I won’t drag you anywhere you don’t want to be. But do come out and see the festivities, my dear musician. It doesn’t have to be with me,” and here he drapes himself across Brumm’s shoulders and feels the musician’s breath hitch in an interesting way, “though I’ll be sad to be so bereft of your company.”

He departs as rapidly as he came, leaving Brumm with a pounding heart as always.

The musician presses a hand to his chest for a moment, attempting to control his breath, and continues his practice. The notes are rusty, this instrument of choice has not been used since before he joined the Troupe, but he wants to get this right.

(He wants to surprise his master, for once. He wants Grimm’s attention in the same way his master surely knows Brumm looks at him, entirely flustered and openly enamored.

Maybe it’s selfish, or greedy, to want the full extent of his master’s attention - just for a little while, the length of a song. There are certainly worthier bugs who have tried, and failed. More talented or more striking, in looks or personality or skill, who have offered so much more and been refused.

But he remembers; a melody from a dream, a bone-deep longing, an old, old exhaustion that sends Grimm into deep slumber and ancient wounds that pain him in the cold - and in the end maybe it can be selfishness, and it can be giving back, too.

Grimm has been and is a performer, a ringmaster, a leader; those roles are what he lives for, and the spotlight is where he thrives - but never truly an audience, part of the crowd, with nothing to do but attend and listen.

Brumm hopes that when the song comes, when the time is right - for the space of a melody, his master can forget everything but the music he loves.)

* * *

He continues to practice.

Just this once, he’s sworn Divine to secrecy, as much as she can be sworn to anything; the idea had clearly amused her (or appealed to what sentimentality she had, or both), and so she had agreed not to say anything if he asked.

_“He’ll like it no matter what, you know,” she says, with a fond little smile. “It’s the thought that counts. But you won’t stop there, will you, lovely?”_

_She’d pinch his cheeks if they weren’t masked. (How she does it with no conventional fingers is - possible. A sight to behold, sometimes. But possible.) Instead, she laughs._

_“Ohh, lovely! The two of you, you’re so similar sometimes! So worried, so eager to please each other. You’re so funny to watch!”_

_He has nothing to say to that, except to feel embarrassment heating his face. She notices that too, of course, and laughs again._

_He grumbles, but not very much._

He stops mid-note as Grimm appears in an explosion of sound and red smoke.

He’s a riotous whirlwind of colour, bedecked in flowers and gaudy fabric; ribbons and garlands hanging off his slim frame like he was born to wear them. He laughs with a ring in his voice that Brumm hasn’t heard in some time, and the musician’s heart skips several beats, all at once, and doesn’t stop.

(When Grimm is happy, it makes him look more wonderful to Brumm than any spotlight or angle ever could.)

He presents himself like a performer waiting for applause, with that satisfied, knowing smile on his face.

“You look -- _amazing_ , master,” Brumm says, at last, finding the words and barely managing not to stammer them out. He sounds breathless - he knows he does - but he doesn’t mind.

(Grimm is resplendent and beautiful and smiling and he wishes, so badly, that he could preserve this moment forever.)

“You’d see more of it if you joined me, my dear musician,” he says, and there’s a hint of longing in that tone, easy to miss for someone who doesn’t know him well. Brumm knows him perhaps too well for his own good, and thus it’s impossible to overlook. “Will you still not?”

_“I miss you when you’re distant,” he had said._ Brumm’s heart twinges with guilt and that same longing.

“Mrmm. Later, master.” He wants to - though his desire is quiet, it’s no less intense - but he needs this to be perfect first, as flawless as he can make it.

“I’ll hold you to those words, you know,” his master says, kneeling before him (another thing that makes his heart jump) with a smile. Close enough to hear that constant heartbeat, close enough to touch. “Let me seal it for you, my friend.”

It’s teasing and joking and not really a joke at all, but asking permission. Brumm laughs breathlessly, surprising himself (surprising Grimm too; there’s a slight, almost imperceptible widening of his eyes) and says “Of course, master-”

The mask is gently plucked off his face as if it was never there, that shallow barrier between the two of them easily removed.

The kiss is rougher than he expected (not violent or painful, because though Grimm is fully capable of being violent when he needs to, it’s never present in this nameless, fervent bond between the two of them), shakier and more passionate than his carefree tone had suggested. His master’s hands wind tightly into the fabric of his hood with a silent insistence that makes his chest ache.

The kiss steals his breath and words and replaces them with a warmth he gladly surrenders to, and he hazily thinks that he should understand by now that he’s not the only one who wants these affectionate moments between them to last forever.

Grimm seems reluctant to pull away, but he does at last. He presses his forehead against Brumm’s with a quiet, satisfied sigh. Brumm merely blinks and tries to focus, still in a pleasant daze.

“It’s a promise, then,” his master murmurs, eyes crinkling into red, pleased slits, his grin playful and wicked (and just a little unfocused, which Brumm doesn’t miss and feels satisfied about). “Don’t keep me waiting too long, my dear musician.”

He steals another kiss while his master is right there, and savours the surprise it gets. Then Grimm laughs and pulls away completely, stepping back and vanishing in another explosion of crimson smoke, and Brumm tries not to become immediately and utterly consumed by the embarrassment that’s caught up with him after the events of the last few minutes.

In the next room over, Divine _cackles_ , and Brumm tries not to defy all known laws of how the world works and disappear completely.

(The warmth stays.

It, too, works its way into the song.)

* * *

When he finally steps outside, Grimm is almost immediately there to greet him. His master doesn’t quite sweep him off his feet, though he certainly does everything but; soon enough, Brumm has his own set of decorations, though it’s more modest than Grimm’s eclectic collection of accepting, apparently, everything given to him. (He wears it well. He always does. His master seems incapable of wearing something badly, ever.)

He’s not used to celebrations. He’s not used to being so unimportant and important all at once; here, he’s just a part of the festivities, rather than someone to be pitied or questioned or even threatened (which has happened). But the bugs here sing and dance under the empty sky and feed the fire that burns bright and hot and throws out embers and sparks like stars; _chasing off the old to make way for the new_ , they explain.

Brumm thinks that makes sense. He wonders if, in his old land, they ever did it that way, for farewells and funerals. He no longer quite remembers what they did.

(Memories and pain, walking hand in hand. There’s a bittersweet taste to it; hurt fades, but so do the ashes of his previous life, crowded out of his head by all he’s done and heard and seen here in his service.)

“No regrets,” his master says from behind, and Brumm almost jumps, but of course he would pick up on it. He’s sensitive to Brumm’s moods, as ever. “Just for a little while, my friend. Leave your worries behind.”

(It’s what he appreciates the most; when he has no words to give, Grimm simply interprets. Much of the time, he’s right. When he’s not, he asks, plainly. It makes communication easier.)

A hand finds its way onto Brumm’s shoulder; the musician holds it there, fingers twining tight, unwilling to let go. Grimm laughs, clear and bright and far younger than he’s ever sounded before, and it’s another shard of memory he wants to keep.

The fire burns low, and the music starts; they’ll build the fire in time to the sound of voices and instruments.

_Would you like to join in with us?_ he’s asked, and he says -- yes.

They go around, taking turns. Some are choruses. Some are quartets, trios, duets; some sad, some happy. Some remembering who they’re singing it with, and some remembering who they weren’t.

“You didn’t bring your accordion,” Grimm notes, like he’s suddenly realised something, and Brumm doesn’t reply because it’s his turn.

The song has no lyrics that he’s made; he works his voice like he would play his instrument, because he’s not good enough at words to capture the feelings he has. Instead, he sews together words from all the songs he knows that might fit, those things he learned long ago and far away. Songs from a land that once lived, and now lives only in his memories.

(He dares to glance at Grimm, just once, and finds that though their eyes meet, his master is the one to divert his gaze. There’s adoration there, a helpless and unrestrained affection that softens him entirely and makes him vulnerable.

It’s all he could have ever asked for and more besides.)

It ends with a song he’s played before; new growth, new beginnings, flowers and lovers in spring. It’s only because he has his mind on singing, pushing his voice to deliver that last effort after years upon years of silence, that he doesn’t show shock when his solo abruptly becomes a duet, and Grimm finishes the performance with him.

They pass on to the next person, and the next, the sound rising into the night sky. The songs continue.

“So that little mystery solved itself, it seems,” Grimm says, his voice rough, and Brumm coughs and takes a moment to answer, because even with all his warming up and practice, he is still, in truth, rusty. (He might never not be; this was special. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever do this again, relying on his voice alone.)

“It was a gift, master,” he says, quiet once more. “I...mrm. Wanted to surprise you.”

“Consider me surprised, then!” He laughs, and then it stops abruptly, and Brumm feels his master’s arms around him, his master’s head resting gently on his shoulder. Ready to withdraw if he needs to, if it’s too much. His eyes are soft, his look relaxed and fond rather than sharp and attentive.

“It was truly wonderful,” he murmurs, and there’s an aching, quiet vulnerability in his voice. (Grimm knows, more than anyone, how much time it must have taken his musician; how much effort, how much courage.) “Thank you, my friend. Thank you very, very much.”

Brumm twines his fingers with Grimm’s once more and says nothing much at all, his eyes soft under his mask. He removes it, after a moment, to turn his head and press a slight kiss to his master’s cheek; it elicits a little sigh, a small and shaky laugh.

They stay like that for a while, surrounded by music. Brumm feels no regret or embarrassment, only a quiet sense of contentment.

This tenderness between them, that soft and vulnerable response to his song, is worth more to him than all the admiration he could ever receive.


End file.
